| Islam,Terrorism and Jihad | |
| 26 Nov 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com | |
| Ahmedabad blasts accused Abdul Razik, an alleged SIMI member, 'regrets shattering lives' | |
| Ahmedabad : After numerous allegations of torture and mistreatment levelled at police by lawyers representing the Ahmedabad blasts accused, the court hearing the case was in for a surprise on Tuesday.
Abdul Razik, an alleged SIMI member and one of the accused in the case, "regretted" having been part of the conspiracy and even praised the Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) for its kindness and cooperation.
Razik said the same in Metropolitan Court No. 11, hearing the blasts case, when he was produced at the end of his police custody.
When Razik's turn came to be identified before the Metropolitan Magistrate, he startled everyone by saying: "I regret that what I have done has shattered so many lives." -------------------------------
Ahmedabad blasts accused Abdul Razik, an alleged SIMI member, 'regrets shattering lives' Express news service Posted: Nov 26, 2008 at 0046 hrs IST
Ahmedabad : After numerous allegations of torture and mistreatment levelled at police by lawyers representing the Ahmedabad blasts accused, the court hearing the case was in for a surprise on Tuesday.
Abdul Razik, an alleged SIMI member and one of the accused in the case, "regretted" having been part of the conspiracy and even praised the Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) for its kindness and cooperation.
Razik said the same in Metropolitan Court No. 11, hearing the blasts case, when he was produced at the end of his police custody.
When Razik's turn came to be identified before the Metropolitan Magistrate, he startled everyone by saying: "I regret that what I have done has shattered so many lives."
In a soft and occasionally faltering voice, he added: "I was brainwashed into doing this heinous act by Tauqeer. He told me that I must do something to avenge what had happened to Muslims in the riots and killings of 2002." Abdul Subhan alias Tauqeer, an alleged key conspirator in the blasts, is still absconding.
Razik denied that he was under any pressure from the police. "I have not been asked to say anything by the police. Yeh meri aatma ki awaaz hai (It's the call of my conscience)... I hope after listening to me, no other Muslim young man will be misled by anyone to do what I have done."
Razik, who was arrested by the DCB on October 24 from Nagda, Madhya Pradesh, is said to be one of the key members involved in the blast that occurred near the Trauma Centre of Civil Hospital. According to DCB officials, Razik helped buy the cycles used in planting the bombs, the LPG cylinder used in the Civil Hospital blast and also arranged an house in Vatva where many meetings of the blast accused were held.
Contrary to their image, Razik told the court on Tuesday, the police had been very good to the blast accused. "Generally among the Muslims there is a perception that the police are against them. But I can say that this is not true. They have behaved very nicely with me... ," Razik said.
However, defence lawyers contended that Razik's statement was part of a ploy by the police to strengthen its defence against possible torture allegations. A lawyer who did not wish to be named said: "Have you ever heard of an accused praising the police?" http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Ahmedabad-blasts-accused--regrets-shattering-lives-/390610 ** Earlier Reports Ahmedabad blasts: Key conspirator Abdul Razzik confesses in court November 26, 2008 00:23 IST Abdul Razzik, one of the key conspirators in the July 26 Ahmedabad [Images] serial blasts case, on Tuesday confessed his involvement in the terror attacks before a local court. Razzik, along with 24 other accused in the blast cases, was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate G M Patel after their police custody ended today. When the court asked Razzik if he had anything to say, he confessed to his involvement in the serial blast in the city and said he regretted his decision. He told the court that because of his actions, many people were killed in the serial blasts. Razzik is accused of planting bombs at various places in the city, purchase of cylinder and cycles used in the blasts, conducting a recce of Hindu-dominated areas in the city where the bombs were placed. He told the court that he was not speaking under police pressure but it was his conscience that had compelled him to confess. He said he was brainwashed by Adus Subhan alias Tauqeer by citing atrocities on Muslims and how the police had 'harassed' women of his community during the 2002 riots. When the court asked Razzik if knew Tauqeer, he said he had arranged for a house in Vatva area of the city for Tauqeer and had met him a couple of times before the serial blasts. He said he was instigated by Tauqeer and he has spoken up to prevent more youths of his community from being mislead by the likes of Tauqeer. ***** 'Ahmedabad blasts carried on the direction of Amir Raza Khan' Published: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 at 19:27 IST Ahmedabad, Nov 20: City Crime Branch has alleged that Amir Raza Khan, presently based in Pakistan, had directed Riyaz Bhatkal and his brother Iqbal to carry out the bomb blasts here on July 26. Amir Raza Khan, an alleged member of the terror outfit HuJI is a resident of Kolkata, while Riyaz Bhatkal is alleged to be the founder member of Indian Mujahideen (IM). Bhatkal brothers had connived with SIMI leaders to hatch the conspiracy of serial blasts in the city and trained local people, the chargesheet submitted last week by the Crime Branch said, adding, IM was a new form of SIMI. SIMI members Safdar Nagori, Hafez Hussain, Sibli Abdul Karim, Kamruddin Nagori, Amil Parvez and Mufti Abu Basher planned the attack and asked Abdus Subhan alias Tauqeer and Qayamuddin Kapadia for executing the blasts. SIMI members organised terror training camps in Waghamon in Kerala and Halol near Vadodara, it said. Qayamuddin and Tauqeer then held a meeting with their local contacts in the city for arrangements of logistics and support to carry out the conspiracy. The local contacts were those who were associated with SIMI before it was banned in 2001 by the Central Government. Some of them have already been arrested by the crime branch while some are still absconding, the 2000-page charge-sheet stated. Gujarat police had earlier claimed that Abu Basher was the mastermind behind the terror attacks in the city. Those contacted by Qayamuddin and Tauqeer included absconders Muzib Sheikh and Alamzeb Afridi, and Abdul Razzik, the chargesheet said. Local contacts provided logistics and support to IM members who conducted the blasts. Around 14 people belonging to IM, mostly from Delhi and Azamgarh, had come to Ahmedabad prior to the blasts and left the city on the day of the blasts. Local contacts were also introduced to Atif Ahmed and Mohammad Sajid of IM, who were killed in an encounter in Delhi in September this year, along with twelve others from Azamgadh and Delhi. Many meetings were held in the houses of people who were previously associated with SIMI in different parts of the city, the chargesheet said. It also said that an IM activist from Mumbai, Afzal Usmani had provided the vehicles used in the blasts, while others from the same city, like Fazal-e-Rehman, Zakir Sheikh, Mohammed Sadik Sheikh, Mohammad Arif, Asif Bashruddin Shaikh had played an active role in executing the blasts. Another group from Mumbai, Mohammed Mansoor Asghar Peerbhoy, Mobin Kader Shaikh and Mohammed Akbar Chaudhary, had sent the threatening email, the chargesheet said. The entire team was guided by Tauqeer and Qayamuddin under the supervision of Riyaz Bhatkal and Iqbal Bhatkal, it alleged. **** Ahmedabad blasts revenge for 2002 riots: Cops November 12, 2008 20:55 IST The Ahmedabad [Images] Crime Branch on Wednesday filed a 2000-page charge-sheet in connection with the July 26 serial blasts in the city court, which said that the terror attacks were primarily carried out to avenge the 2002 communal riots and to spread Islam religion in the country. 'Terrorism and riots are not interlinked' The chargesheet, which names 26 people allegedly related to SIMI [Images] as accused in the terror attacks, was filed in the court of Metropolitan Magistrate G M Patel, designated for hearing the serial blasts related cases. Chargesheet which has been filed for the blasts at the city civil hospital in Shahibaug area and L G Hospital in the Maninagar area lists 50 people as absconding. According to one of the officer involved in the investigation, the chargesheet describes how the basic conspiracy was planned by the accused, along with roles of all the individuals. The motive of the carrying out terror attack in Ahmedabad was to avenge the 2002 Gujarat riots and spread Islam religion in the country, the official said. He said that after the ban of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in 2001, some of its members got together and formed the Indian Mujahideen. The planning of the conspiracy began with the meeting of the SIMI members in the Waghamon forests of Kerala in December 2007, where modules from Delhi [Images], Mumbai and Gujarat had gathered, the officer added. The follow up meeting was held in January 2008 in Halol near Vadodara where the SIMI members had hatched the conspiracy of terror attack in various parts of the country, he added. One of the investigating officers said that chargesheet says Mufti Abu Basher, alleged mastermind behind the terror attacks, along with SIMI leader Safdar Nagori, Sibli Abdul Karim, Kamruddin Nagori, Sajid Mansuri, Qayamuddin Kapadia and Abdus Subha alias Tauqeer were the key players behind the July 26 terror attacks. He said that Qayamuddin, and Tauqeer had come to Gujarat prior to the blasts and their local aides in Ahmedabad were Alamzeb Afridi and Mujib Sheikh. Qayamuddin was arrested by the Madhya Pradesh [Images] police couple of days ago from Ujjain, while Tauqeer, Alamzeb and Mujib are still absconding. The officer further said that the a group of accused had visited Ahmedabad on 11th and 12th of July, and later they came back to plant the bombs on July 25. After planting the bombs in different parts of the city all the accused left the city in the Rajdhani Express on July 26. According to another police officer, 511 witnesses have been examined during the investigation, whose statement have been included in the chargesheet as annexures. The accused named in the chargesheet include Jahid Sheikh, Imran Sheikh, Iqbal Sheikh, Samsuddin Sheikh, Gyasuddin Sheikh, Arif Kagzi, Usman Agarbattiwala, Yunus Mansuri, Sajid Mansuri, Abu Basher, Naved Kadri, Javed Sheikh, Abbas Sameja, Aiyaz Sayyad, Salim Sipahi, Umar Kabira, Safdar Nagori, Hafez Hussain, Sibli Abdul Karim, Kamruddin Nagori, Amil Parvez, Mohammad Ali, Raziuddin Nasir, Atik-ur-Rehman, Mehndi Hassan and Imran Ahmed alias Raja. The chargesheet also contains list of 50 absconders, which include the names of Riyaz Bhatkal, Iqbal Bhatkal, Danish, Mehboob, the Crime Branch official said. All the 26 accused have been charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Explosive Substance Act, Damage to Public Property Act, Information Technology Act, he added. They have also been charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, which include 120 (1a) (Waging war against the state), 153(a) (creating rift between two communities), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) Serial bomb blasts rocked the city on July 26, killing 55 persons and injuring several others. Two of the bombs had exploded at two big hospital in the city. Over two dozen bombs were defused from different parts of Surat [Images] city after the terror attacks in Ahmedabad. When asked if this was a preliminary chargesheet in the case as some of the accused brought from Delhi and Mumbai are still being interrogated by the police, Assistant Commissioner of Police V R Toliya said that this chargesheet will form the base for the supplementary chargesheets, which will be filed as the investigations progresses. "This will form the base for all the additional chargesheets that will be filed later on as it has all the details of how the conspiracy was hatched in the terror camps in Gujarat and Kerala, who all attended the camps, and how the individual roles were chalked out to carry out the attacks," Toliya said. He added that present charges that have been framed are limited to the serial blasts in Ahmedabad. © Copyright 2008 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent. ***** Ahmedabad serial blasts key accused nabbed in MP November 10, 2008 14:00 IST Qayamuddin Kapadia, one of the key conspirators of the July 26 serial blasts in Ahmedabad [Images], has been arrested by the Madhya Pradesh [Images] police. "Qayamuddinn Kapadia has been arrested by the MP police. I do not have much detail on this matter as of now," Joint Commissioner of Police of Ahmedabad Crime Branch Ashish Bhatia told PTI. Ahmedabad Blasts Qayamuddin, who hails from Vadodara, was declared absconding by the city crime branch, which is investigating the serial blasts case. He allegedly planted cycle bombs in the city as well as bombs in different parts of Surat [Images], Bhatia said. He was also responsible for purchase of cycles on which the bombs were mounted and kept in different parts of the city, he added. ********** How Modi's police cracked the blasts case Sheela Bhatt in Gujarat August 19, 2008 Besides many other things, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is certainly a lucky politician. In just 22 days his police claims to have solved the conspiracy behind the serial bomb blasts in Ahmedabad [Images] of July 26 and the mystery behind the bombs that were planted all over Surat but did not explode. How did the Gujarat police manage what the police in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur [Images] and Bengaluru [Images] could not do in the last two years? rediff.com reconstructs the investigations that went into unravelling the conspiracy on the basis of information from multiple sources in Ahmedabad and New Delhi [Images]. The early leads On the evening of July 26, as the news of the bomb blasts trickled in from Isanpur, Narol circle to the Maninagar area of Ahmedabad, the last being Modi's constituency, the police and political establishment were stunned. After the communal riots of 2002 there had been expectations of some kind of violent "reaction", but 22 blasts in 18 spots in a highly communally surcharged city were stunning to say the least. Not only that, it was also loaded with a stern political message for the chief minister who has won the popular mandate twice on the plank of security. Chief Minister Modi and Amit Shah, his minister of state for home, do not lack the motivation to pick up difficult political or administrative challenges, but the blasts at the civil hospital was too shocking even for the seasoned politicos. Their desperation in facing the situation was obvious. Modi has projected himself as a "different" leader because he provided safety to people in a country wracked by terrorism. But 18 blasts in 80 minutes seriously dented his image, and his only redemption lay in going about the investigation with professionalism. His police's and his own credibility was so low in matters of criminal investigations after the Sohrabuddin encounter case and the communal riots cases of 2002 that they needed to put in extra effort. Also, whatever the spin-masters claim, it's clear that somewhere the police and the administration failed to prevent the blasts which were committed by "home-grown" elements. Terror's new faces There was failure on the part of the police machinery. When the investigations started, the first thing all the IPS officers did was to read Students Islamic Movement of India chief Safdar Nagori's statement given to the Madhya pradesh [Images] police when he was arrested in March, and that of his associate Ameel Pervez. Pervez had attended an arms training camp in Gujarat and he also gave the names of SIMI [Images] members like Sajid Mansuri, Yunus Mansuri, Zahid Sheikh, Imran Sheikh and Usman Agarbattiwala who had attended it. Neither the concerned states nor the IB had acted on it and taken preventive measures. However, the lessons were late in coming but they were learnt quickly. It is credit to Modi's determination and the Gujarat police's zeal, aided by the Intelligence Bureau's extraordinary efforts in giving relevant inputs to the state police, that this case could be cracked. There was an element of urgency in the police investigations since the state government took it as a war that needed to be won. After the blasts, for the first few days the Gujarat government's approach was tinged with nervousness because they wanted to avoid communal tension at any cost. The political leaders' anxiety only heightened on reading the e-mail sent by the terrorists just moments before the blasts. The e-mail "in the Name of Allah" from Indian Mujahideen had challenged Modi and his police in its opening sentence itself. It said, 'Indian Mujahideen strike again! - Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death!' The clumsily worded e-mail was so blunt in its political message that Modi had no option but to pick up the gauntlet against terrorism. The e-mail became the motivating force for some senior police officers, too. While provoking the Muslims of Gujarat it said, 'Target these evil politicians and leaders of BJP, RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal, who provoke the masses against you. Target and kill the wicked police force who were watching the "fun" of your bloodshed and who handed you to the rioting sinful culprits. Target their hired informers and spies even if they are the disloyal and betraying munafiqeen (hypocrites) of our Ummah. O Muslims of Gujarat!' By midnight of July 26 the ruling political leadership sprang into action to make senior policemen understand that their investigations will get 100 per cent support, nothing less nothing more. They had at their disposal money, resources, manpower and even a chartered plane. "As the news of the seventh blasts came in we knew that there more than 25 people were involved. And, we assessed that without the help of local Ahmedabadis the anti-national elements could not have planted bombs in such a perfect operation. We made these two assumptions and they proved right. We started looking within, without wasting any time," said a senior officer who was a member of the core team of investigators. The text of the IM's e-mail was sent to all officers including in Baroda, Bharuch and Surat [Images] where the investigations needed to be done on a war footing. The e-mail was analyzed thoroughly, and its careful reading helped narrow down the focus. More than 11 teams were formed within the first few hours of the blasts. One team was asked to handle the investigations into the material used in the bombs. Another team was asked to investigate the use of bicycles. Another team was formed to thoroughly check all the phone calls made in Ahmedabad from certain areas just before and after the blasts. Another team was set up to reach out to all the police informers and gather their opinions on and information of the blasts. One team followed the cyber crime aspect of the case. The overall investigation of the case was assigned to the crime branch of Ahmedabad where more than 100 people started following whatever little leads that were available, from the midnight of July 26. All of them were told that even if "communal riots (the possibility was always there) take place in Ahmedabad they should not divert their attention." "From July 26 to August 16 (when the breakthrough was announced) none of us went home to sleep. Every morning at 7 we would all go home and return after a shower and in fresh clothes. We would sleep on our chairs in the daytime. We haven't hit the bed yet," said Deputy Commissioner of Police Abhay Chudasama, who along with his boss Joint Commissioner of Police Ashish Bhatia and Rakesh Asthana, police commissioner of Baroda, played an important role in detecting the conspiracy behind the bomb blasts. The Gujarat police claim that, probably for the first time, the central Intelligence Bureau and it have worked on the terrorism case as complementary teams and produced some excellent results. Between July 27 and August 16, on many days the political leadership was briefed in the Ahmedabad circuit house at 4 am. That was the kind of frenzy displayed by the Gujarat police and the political leaders to get to the bottom of the terror case. Chudasama claims that for the first three days they had no clue of the culprits behind the blasts, but more and more assuredly all of them started believing that it seemed to be the work of the banned SIMI. The Gujarat police's databank of SIMI members in Ahmedabad had some names including that of Zahid Sheikh. They picked him up and started interrogating him extensively. "He is a fanatic. He is not a Gujarati, he is not an Indian. He claims he is merely a soldier of Islam. These accused don't belong to even their own families," said a source in the police. "You will have to understand the identity of the perpetrators of the bomb blasts. Their "transnational" identity itself is an anti-national act," says one of the interrogators. Hectic interrogation was going on at two places, one of them being the crime branch office in Haveli area of Ahmedabad. Here, Joint Commissioner of Police Ashish Bhatia and his deputy Abhay Chudasama were working relentlessly to narrow down their search. In Baroda, under the supervision of Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana, independent investigations were going on. Asthana is a level-headed officer with 10 years of experience in the Central Bureau of Investigation. He shares the credit for investigating the fodder scam which tainted Lalu Prasad Yadav [Images]. As soon as the news came out that Baroda might have been used as a conduit by the conspirators, Asthana formed a special team of hardly four-five people. In Ahmedabad and Baroda the most important thing was to keep the investigations and its processes a secret. A news-hungry media was all the time "fooled" by leaking irrelevant stories and even sketches of the 'accused' were made only to "feed" the media. It was of no use to the investigators whatsoever. In reality, they were going down a different path. Once the role of SIMI emerged, Asthana specially asked his department to get on board two Muslim police officers. Since he is merely two months old in his current post, he got from the databank a file on SIMI activists living in Baroda. The blue file had a professionally prepared dossier on SIMI activists, and the opening page featured Usman Agarbattiwala complete with his photograph. Asthana went through the accompanying details like Agarbattiwala's telephone numbers, his work, background and the names of all his relatives that were in the dossier. Immediately, details of Agarbattiwala's telephone calls, both made and received, were procured. It took relentless work through day and night to make the chart of the most frequently made calls from his phone. They were then narrowed down and owners of those numbers were detected and, in turn, the printouts of those phone calls were procured. A professional hard work done with the help of computers in the police headquarters in Kothi area yielded fantastic results. Asthana's team created a cluster of cell phone movement among select persons. These movements were finally narrowed down to Agarbattiwala, Kayamuddin Kapadia, Imran Sheikh and Iqbal Sheikh. In no time Agarbattiwala, Imran and Iqbal were picked up. Along with others Joint Commissioner of Police Pravin Kumar Sinha and inspector Karimbhai Polra played an important role in Asthana's team. The first copy of the interrogation report was sent to the Ahmedabad team which was narrowing down on local SIMI activists including Zahid Sheikh. Agarbattiwala's cracking proved very crucial. Bhatia and Chudasama cracked Zahid Sheikh as much as they could. In Baroda, Iqbal was a new entrant to SIMI ranks but some of the detainees were tough nuts to crack who had undergone special training to withstand police methods. On the basis of the early lead provided by the interrogations in Baroda and Ahmedabad, teams of Gujarat police travelled to Kerala [Images], Mumbai, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Uttar Pradesh [Images], Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka to collect a variety of documentary evidence. By August 8-9, Modi knew his state police was just days away from success that has eluded the police in other Indian states wracked by terrorism. Source: http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/aug/19spec.htm ******* Gujarat cops' biggest problem: public scepticism Sheela Bhatt in Gujarat August 26, 2008 15:59 IST After highlighting how the Gujarat police force cracked the Ahmedabad blasts conspiracy and how the they were going about building an airtight case against the terrorists, in this the final part of her 3-part series, Sheela Bhatt describes how the force is trying to overcome its biggest stumbling block: the disbelief over its claim of having cracked the case: In cracking the Ahmedabad [Images] serial blasts case the Gujarat police may have opened a Pandora's box. It claims to have not only got evidence against those who planned and executed the bomb blasts in Ahmedabad and Surat [Images], but also that it has got definite insights into the conspiracy aspect of the blasts on Samjhauta Express and in Jaipur. In fact, some unused explosive connected with the blasts on Samjhauta Express was recently recovered by Gujarat police. In other words, what the Gujarat police is claiming is that the blasts in Hyderabad, Bengaluru [Images], Jaipur, Ahmedabad and probably Samjhauta Express were conceived, planned and executed by the militant faction of the Students Islamic Movement of India formed after 2005. That also means the usual suspects -- like Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, Lashkar-e-Tayiba or HUJI of Bangladesh -- can't be blamed for some of the recent blasts that have killed more than 200 innocent Indians. So far, revelations by the accused suggest that the terror strikes in Bengaluru, Jaipur and Gujarat are made in India and by Indians. A senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader in Gujarat, whose party is in power in the state, says, "We have not found any external links to SIMI [Images] in the execution of the blasts in Ahmedabad and Surat." The Gujarat police zoomed in on SIMI only after they interrogated Zahid Sheikh of Ahmedabad (who allegedly planted the bomb in the city's civil hospital) and Usman Agarbattiwala of Baroda. Their interrogation, read along with SIMI chief Safdar Nagori and his associate Ameel pervez's statement, made them believe that SIMI, a fiercely political outfit, turned militant after it was banned in 2001. "Possibly SIMI's role behind the bomb blasts was overlooked while giving attention to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. The Indian establishment went into slumber after banning SIMI," says a senior police officer in Ahmedabad. He says four days after the bomb blasts, when the Gujarat police narrowed down their focus to SIMI and picked up Zahid Sheikh from his home in Juhapura, a political leader questioned its judgement in a meeting. "He said SIMI may not have done 'direct action' like planning to kill so many people," the police officer said. If Nagori's statement had been studied properly, may be the story would have been different. "It's the height of inefficiency," fumed Ajit Doval, former chief of Intelligence Bureau. "Senior officers are so 'busy' normally that they read only the summary of such confessional statements. In Nagori's statement, the mention of Gujarat and Rajasthan must be in the third paragraph of page number 17," he added, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "We never got a copy of Safdar Nagori's statement," counters Ashish Bhatia, Ahmedabad's joint commissioner of police who is heading the investigation into the Gujarat blasts. "We were unaware that he has mentioned any plans of subversive activities in Rajasthan and Gujarat. We knew generally about the threat perception, but nothing beyond that." Naturally, given the credibility problem investigations into terrorism-related suffer from in India, and more so by the Gujarat police in the light of the Sohrabuddin case, the latter's current achievements is looked at either with suspicion or complete disbelief. Any kind of communal violence or terrorism is a delicate issue in India; a number of people -- from whichever community the perpetrators belong to -- inevitably slip into denial mode. In this case, most experts deemed secular and Muslim leaders do not buy the Gujarat police's version of events. A Bengaluru-based expert on India's madrassas refused to respond to rediff.com because he said the police's findings are based on confessional statements of arrested people, and extracted under pressure. Doval, however, disagrees. "In the absence of any other evidence I would think the Gujarat police investigation is credible," he says. Bhatia was emphatic: "I can tell you that we have enough evidence in this case to plead for death sentence for the culprits. Our investigations will withstand trial in any court." So, given these two opinions, should one believe the investigations of the Gujarat police? Here are pointers to form one's judgement. Special police teams from Rajasthan, Haryana, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru have already lined up in Ahmedabad to interrogate the arrested accused, especially Mufti Abu Bashir and Sajid Mansuri. What they do beyond this will indicate the authenticity of the Gujarat police's claims. The Kerala [Images] government has confirmed that an arms training camp was organised by SIMI in December 2007 and even a First Information report was filed against it in the area, but investigations were abruptly discontinued. The Gujarat police claims that it has details of the involvement of some 40 persons in the recent bomb blasts in India out of which they have arrested 10 who are directly involved in the serial blasts in Ahmedabad and in planting of bombs in Surat. They also claim that a separate press conference will be held to reveal how, when and by whom the bombs were planted in Surat. Baroda police commissioner Rakesh Asthana says, "We have no doubt that the same group which planted bombs in Ahmedabad was behind the Surat bombs. The technique used in it didn't work but the bombs were not kept to just scare the people, they were meant to explode. We know where these bombs were assembled in Baroda." It is noteworthy that before the Gujarat government responded politically to the sceptics, the Congress-led central government has already given its stamp of approval to the investigations by using it against SIMI in the ongoing hearings in Supreme Court over the organisation's ban. The Gujarat police has admitted that Intelligence Bureau has lent enormous support to its investigators to unravel the conspiracy. IB chief P C Haldar is a confidant of National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, and it's quite unlikely that his establishment will wholeheartedly support the Gujarat chief minister's cops or allow him to reap any political benefit from the investigations. It is well known in intelligence circles that Mufti Abu Bashir's arrest from Uttar Pradesh would have not been possible but for IB's speedy efforts. As Zahid Sheikh, Sajjad Mansoori and Agarbattiwala started singing in custody, it was IB which helped the investigations move in the right direction by instantly -- in some cases in just four hours -- providing dossiers of names that cropped up in the interrogations from their databank in Mumbai and Delhi. Home Minister Shivraj Patil himself has congratulated Gujarat Minister of State Amit Shah for cracking the case. But there were hiccups too. Around August 13-14, when the Mufti was traced to his village in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati [Images] asked her police officers if any case against him was pending in the state. Her idea, initially, was to keep him in the state government's custody. But somehow wisdom prevailed in Lucknow and she allowed the Mufti to be handed over to the Gujarat police. At one point of time, the Gujarat police wanted to interrogate Mufti Bashir before his arrest, and efforts were made at the highest levels in Gujarat and in New Delhi to detain the Mufti, interrogate him and then seek his police custody. It is well known that accused don't reveal much after their formal arrest. This practice, despite being a violation of human rights is a common one in India, but was not allowed by Home Minister Shivraj Patil in this instance. He categorically denied to the Gujarat government any access to Bashir without first arresting him. Despite all this and the sceptics' vocal criticism, the political leadership and the police in Gujarat are confident that this case will be built as professionally as it can be. Giving some details of the investigations, police officers told rediff.com that all the arrested terrorists are Deobandis, and some of them follow one of its conservative sects, the Ahle Hadis. Most of the arrested accused are tough, well-trained in how to deal with police interrogation and have a fairly good knowledge of functioning of the media, judiciary and the police. All of them know they are safer if arrested, illegal detention is what scares both criminals and innocents. While parting with inside information, a police officer who did not want to be named told rediff.com, "It's easier to withstand and tackle external aggression because it unites Indians. Internal subversion divides society." "One should wait for more revelations from the police, but we are in precarious times," comments Bhanu Pratap Mehta of the Centre for Policy Research. "Why are so many people feeling alienated?" India can no longer pass the buck. It is time to introspect why some of her own citizens are taking to terrorism against her. http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/aug/26sheela.htm *** Investigators say Indian Mujahideen is SIMI, V2.0 Text: Vicky Nanjappa July 27, 2008 Investigators are pursuing the line that the Indian Mujahideen, which sent an e-mail alert about Saturday's Ahmedabad blasts and an e-mail after last year's Uttar Pradesh blasts, is the Students Islamic Movement of India in a new guise. The reason for the new nomenclature is two fold, say Intelligence Bureau officials. One, Pakistan's external intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence, has been making consistent efforts to create new outfits to operate in the Indian heartland since Pakistan is usually accused of complicity in such attacks, which is turning up the heat on that country in international circles. Two, SIMI, which has been on the run since the crackdown on it in Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere, realises that any terror attack under its aegis is self-defeating since its top leadership is in jail and freely accessible for interrogation. Hence, the Indian Mujahideen. |
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